Despite the introduction of IP telephony implemented in software for use on computers, desktop telephones are still abundant. In particular in professional office use, such telephone devices may be connected to headset systems to enable hands-free telephony. Such headsets may be provided with or without electronic hook switch systems, the latter to enable remote switching of a telephone connection via the headset systems, analogously to the operation of a mechanical hook switch of a telephone device. This means that besides speech and other audio data, also instruction data is communicated between the telephone device and the headset system.
Manufacturers of desktop telephones provide different and often proprietary protocols instead of widely standardised protocols for communication with headset systems. This means that it is difficult or impossible to provide a generic headset system. Therefore, adapters are provided to enable communication between a more or less generic headset system and telephones of various manufacturers, the adapter being adapted to both the headset system and the telephone device. Such adapters are as simple as possible, acting as translators only. They comprise two interfaces and a processor, usually programmed by firmware.
Software is rarely perfectly programmed and bug-free. Furthermore, desktop telephones have a long lifetime and long economical lifetime in particular, far longer than for example personal computers. This means that also the adapters provided between the telephone device and the headset have a long lifetime. Over this lifetime, the firmware may have to be updated regularly, for bug fixes and/or updates of functionality. However, with the adapter being a simple device with only two interfaces for communicating with the telephone device and the headset system, the only option for providing firmware is by returning the adapter to the manufacturer for a firmware update with the manufacturer. This is a time consuming and expensive solution.
US 2008/0052702 discloses a method of updating firmware through a digital broadcasting system. For connecting to a digital broadcast system, sophisticated electronic interfaces, including receivers and decoders, are required. For small electronic devices, such interfaces are not required for normal operation. Providing such interfaces for updating firmware through a digital broadcasting to such small and simple devices dramatically increases complexity to such device, resulting in more than significant increase of cost for such device.